Page 133 of The Alchemists

Seb hated how deeply the words slapped him.

“And then I remembered, of course, that House Bellarius and House Allsaires have always been close allies.” He fixed Seb with his pale gaze. “Did you know that only a generation back, we came very close to joining our two houses? It was a great disappointment, of course. Your father and I hoped that it could be accomplished in this generation instead.”

Seb wanted to say something, was capable of nothing.

“I realized that were I in your father’s position, I would want to know what kind of son I had actually raised.”

The words obliterated Seb. He felt them more acutely than the Giant’s blow to his ribs earlier. The pain gasped back, piercing upward into his lungs. His vision blurred at the edges. Bellarius favored him with a ghost of a smile.

“Never mind interfering with Tribunal business. Never mind theft and tampering with curses. You know how those are punishable, of course. No, if it were me, I would want to know that my son was a liar. I would want to know that instead of the future I’d strived to lay out for him, he was throwing it all away, sabotaging the family line for mundanity. My heart aches to think of how disappointed Genevieve would be if she knew.”

At the mention of his mother, a sick ache settled against the crushing in his ribs. He wasn’t close with his mother; sometimes wasn’t even sure if he actually loved her in a concrete way, but he had done much over the years to avoid disappointing her.

“And that’s not even to mention the other rumors. Of other dalliances.” He didn’t need to catch Bellarius’s gaze to know what rumors. “But perhaps Fabian already knows about those. Perhaps he is more…open-minded than most.” He looked at Seb, waiting for a response that didn’t come. “So, I came here, Sebastian, to give you the opportunity to do the right thing: to return what you’ve taken. Otherwise, if I were you, I’d hope that I won that Elumnara tonight. Because I do believe you’ll need it.”

Seb’s breath came in very rapidly. He couldn’t hide it; he was far past the point of caring.

“Well, Sebastian? Do we have a deal?”

Seb turned and walked away.

LILY

Right away Lily could see that something was terribly, horribly wrong.

SEB

By the time he realized what was actually wrong, it was far too late to do anything about it. He’d sprinted back to the stadium, meeting the kid in the hall before the tunnel and accepting his gear as he spun and staggered down the dim opening. He knew he was late; late enough that he didn’t have time to check how late he was.

Something was off. Weird. He knew it in the way he did in the hours or minutes before he got violently ill—floaty and woozy—only realizing that he was sick as he ran for a toilet to spill his guts into. He was too distracted, too in a tailspin from the conversation to assess the problem, and assumed that Bellarius was the source of the ill feeling.

Hawthorn Bellarius is blackmailing me. Hawthorn Bellarius is going to tell my parents about Lily.

He should have known it; known that he’d gotten away too easily. But he had too many plates spinning through the air right now—the curse, Conrad and the charges, the Elumnara, which he knew Lily was still pursuing, Lily herself—and he was no juggler. Breathing hard, he emerged into the bright lights of the ring, squinting against the glare. Danielson was already standing in position, waiting.

The official glared at him, as if he hadn’t known Seb for years, as if he didn’t know that he’d never been late to a bout before, would never be late voluntarily. It reminded him of the double standard his parents had for him and Reg. Reg transgressed early, often, without remorse. Their rarity made the few blemishes on Seb’s record stand out that much more boldly.

And speaking of his parents…there they were, in the first row. Seated next to Hawthorn Bellarius. As Seb ground to a halt in the middle of the ring, he watched Hawleyhurst vault over an empty seat and tap Seb’s mother on the shoulder. She hugged Conrad warmly. She had never hugged Seb warmly, in his recollection.

His ribs ached. He searched, without turning, for Lily as he pretended to listen to the official, as he handed over his gear to be checked for tampering, as he received it back, not quite sure of what to make of the expression on the official’s face.

It wasn’t until the match began, until he moved away into zone two and tried to break the spell-seal that he realized what was wrong—he had no magic. The weirdness he had felt, the strange quiet, had been a lack of magic. He tried to cast, tried again. Nothing happened. His foil and his Orb were both empty.

He blinked as the world blurred around him.

Evan Danielson threw Birth of Kagutsuchi at his head.

LILY

It took Lily exactly five seconds to realize what was wrong.

Seb had no magic.

Seb had no magic.

It wasn’t possible. Her heart screamed alongside her lungs.

SEB